Whether you’re doing a building project or not, building projects can be an opportunity to learn some leadership insights.
You learn a lot about yourself, your church or organization and even the culture during something as tangible and intensive as a building project.
Last month at Connexus Church, a church plant where I serve as Lead Pastor, we moved into our first permanent facility and completely refreshed our portable location. (The pic below is from my opening message. You can see some other photos and highlights here).
I hope what we learned can help you grow your mission.
1. Distinguish between high pace and high passion
As would be the case with any intense project, our team ran incredibly hard to get into the building. The last two months in particular were a frenzy, and people (both staff and volunteers) worked long days every day to make sure we opened on time and with excellence.
We had some incredibly fun moments in those long hours, but when it was over, everyone was exhilarated but exhausted.
Clearly the pace we were running at is unsustainable.
But what also surfaced in the months leading up to our opening was a passion level we haven’t seen in years. Some volunteers pulled all nighters to meet deadlines. People invited dozens of friends. People were so excited!
I knew I didn’t want the excitement of the project to be lost. But I also knew we were running at an unsustainable pace.
The temptation after a long sprint like that is for everything to go back to ‘normal’—something I didn’t want to see happen.
So in the weeks right after launch, I made a distinction between pace and passion.
The pace needs to return to a sustainable level. People need to take days off again and find a rhythm that allows them to thrive, at work and at home.
BUT…I didn’t want to lose the excitement around launch.
So we started to talk about the passion we’d seen for the project. I’m encouraging our team to keep the passion level high and throw it all into the mission.
Moving forward, we need to maintain a high passion AND we need to return to a sustainable pace.
I think by clearly delineating between the two, we’re able to capture the BEST of what the project offered us and still have some semblance of balance in our lives.
If you keep a high pace and a high passion, you burn people out.
If you keep a sustainable pace and lose the passion, you eventually lose effectiveness.
A high passion and sustainable pace offers the best of both worlds.
You can’t run at a high pace forever. But you should run with high passion forever.
You can't run at a high pace forever. But you should run with high passion forever. Click To Tweet2. Offer multiple jump in points for different kinds of people
When you’re leading a building project, you have to cast vision at different levels.
When we began our capital campaign three years ago (we used Injoy Stewardship Solutions to help us with this, by the way, who were super helpful), we didn’t have an address or even a blue print to show the congregation.
Usually your first donors on a project like that are visionary givers. They are bought into the mission and vision and their trust of the leadership of the church is high.
Different people opt in at different stages of a campaign.
Others jumped in when the location had been secured. Other still when construction began.
Some jumped on board (financially and in terms of their volunteer help) once they actually toured the construction site.
We also ran a countdown to the opening and that helped more people jump on board in terms of serving, giving and inviting their friends to the grand opening.
We also realized that some were still waiting to jump on board until the facility was open. So 30 days after move in we’re calling for more volunteers (realizing some people will want to serve now that they’ve seen it open and fully operational), and we’ll give people the opportunity to jump in financially in the first six months of occupancy.
I’m an early adopter, but Just because I’m an early adopter doesn’t mean everyone is.
The lesson? Offer multiple jump in points on every project.
Just because you're an early adopter doesn't mean everyone is. Offer multiple jump in points. Click To Tweet3. Leverage ‘new’ as an opportunity to invite
Anytime you do something new, it’s an opportunity for momentum.
People will invite to ‘new’ in the same way they invite to Christmas, Easter and other big occasions.
We used the hashtag #EverybodyBringSomebody on our social media for months, and encouraged everybody to bring somebody.
We’ve seen the biggest visitor spike we’ve seen in a while, and opening Sunday at our Barrie location saw 2x the normal attendance.
Whenever you do something new (even a new series!), leverage it as an opportunity to invite.
If you want more, one of my favourite Andy Stanley leadership talks is on momentum. You can find it here for free if you scroll down under video and click ‘more’. It’s the talk called “The Three Components of Momentum.” You’re welcome. 🙂
Every time you do something new, it's an opportunity for momentum. Click To Tweet4. Keep the why WAY bigger than the what and the how
In a building project (or any project focused on a tangible goal), the temptation will be to gravitate toward the what and the how.
People pepper you with question like
How many square feet are you building? (Answer. 24,000)
How much will this cost? (Answer, total project cost of $2,800,000—it’s the build out of permanent leased space.)
How many people can this building hold? (About 1,500 people per Sunday if we run 3 services…we built what we can afford right now. It’s a hub out of which we can launch future campuses and our online campus).
What you will naturally forget to communicate…is the why behind the what and the how.
Why are we doing this? Because we’re creating a church unchurched people love to attend. And we’re leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus.
That’s why.
Even as a leader, you will forget to communicate this because the what and the how are so interesting.
But don’t forget.
Even the best leaders need to remind themselves to focus on the why behind the what and the how. Click To Tweet5. Get ready for the ‘Now What?”
The reality is that once you open your facility or finish your project, there’s an inevitable let down that happens.
It’s a post-adrenaline let down…the crash. And then the question “Now what?” emerges.
And often, leaders don’t have a great answer.
If you don’t have a great answer for “Now What?” you won’t like what happens next.
As a result, life returns to normal far too quickly…if you let it.
The best way to prepare for the let down is to take point 6 seriously.
7 Practical Leadership Insights From Our Move Into Our New Building Click To Tweet6. See the completion of your project as a start line, not a finish line
My answer for to the Now what? question was this: completing our new facility is the start line, not the finish line.
When you work really hard on a project, everyone’s looking for the finish line. And there needs to be a finish line. You can’t run hard forever.
But leaders need to keep some gas in the tank and be ready to go.
In the months leading up to the completion, I kept reminding myself and my team that completing the building is our start line, not our finish line.
To treat the opening of a building as a finish line would be like buying a sports car only to park in your driveway…forever. Isn’t driving it the point?
Our new facility and your new project provide the chance to take the mission to places and levels it’s never been before. It’s a means to an end, not the end in itself.
If you see whatever project you’re working on as a start line, not a finish line, you’ll be much more effective in accomplishing your mission.
View everything you're completing as a start line, not a finish line. Click To Tweet7. Re-evaluate everything in light of your new season
Whenever you enter a new season, it’s important to look at everything through fresh eyes.
Think through your staffing, your strategy, your values, your team, your dreams. Is each of them optimally positioned for what’s ahead?
When our attendance doubled on opening day, it was a chance for us to test our systems. We had added 150 volunteers just a month prior to opening…and are we glad we did. We needed everyone of them.
But our check in system for families worked. Our guest services team could accommodate all the new guests. Our parking team was ready. Our staff was ready.
While we were thankful for that, we started to ask “what if every Sunday was like this?” And then we made more changes, to parking, to guest services, to our check in. And we’re tracking how people are connecting in this new era.
We’re also rethinking our budget and our staff positions and where we need to be in a year on all those fronts.
The point is you could cruise and hope it all works, but change allows you to reevaluate all your approaches and systems to see if they are helping you best steward the opportunities in front of you. If they’re not, change them.
When in doubt, re-evaluate everything. Click To Tweet
